One of the spaces in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Photograph: AP

Who is Glenn D Lowry?

A particular modern problem is that megalomania, especially when it involves real estate development, is the disturbance of many faceless men. And a faceless man is a difficult enemy.

Lowry is the director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and arguably the man most responsible for the transformation of the New York museum into a mall-like experience and a traffic aggregator and facilitator. His almost 20 years as head of the museum, climaxing once more in a massive plan of expansion and redesign, have destroyed one of the most unique and precious public experiences of modern art. I don't think this is a controversial statement.

Still, in the era of acceptance of growth of all sorts, pride in the gilded city, a no-questions-asked tolerance for largess wherever it came from and to whomever it goes, and a general bewilderment at the ever-upward climb of the art world, nobody has quite squarely named Lowry as a singular enemy of the good.

As a sign of the times, this may be changing, and Lowry may have overplayed his hand. Plans for a major new redevelopment of the museum, released last week, not only sweep under MoMA's roller the Folk Art Museum, a good and modest building next door on West 53rd Street, which MoMA acquired in 2011, but again focus the issue on what such radical growth has wrought. It is not controversial to say that nobody likes the new plan.

Curiously, one main rationale for the new expansion is to fix all of the huge problems resulting from expansions past – ie the same people who screwed it up in the first place are now being entrusted to not only undue their mistakes but not to screw it up again.

There was, when I came to New York in the 1970s, no more profound or moving experience than MoMA, an almost perfect piece of 20th Century modernist expression, existing in an extraordinary balance – modestly, functionally, elegantly – with the extraordinary art it held. This place changed my life. I was transformed by every visit. It had the same effect certain books and films can have on you. And nothing dimmed in the repetition. It always revealed more. And the intimacy. It really achieved the Holy Grail of public spaces. It accommodated all and yet you could feel perfectly alone. Everything here rightly belonged to everyone, but, when you needed it, it was all for you. MoMA was one of the most successful museums in the world. Perhaps one of the most satisfying man-made spaces ever.

But all institutions need to grow, apparently, like sharks need to move. If institutions don't grow, they … well, I don't know what happens to them, because they always grow. I suppose the point is that we forget about the ones that don't.

New York University, a historically second or third rate institution, is arguably still second or third rate, but it nevertheless now rivals Columbia University in status because it has expanded brutally, whereas Columbia has mostly stayed confined. NYU, like MoMA, now is engaged in the mother of all of all expansion battles. If it wins – an adverse court decision was recently placed in its path – it will take a large swath of Greenwich Village with it.

Lowry is a hedge-fund looking guy, about whom I have never heard a meaningful characterization. He pleases who he has to please. He stays out of the line of fire. He is the perfect, frictionless bureaucrat. By training he is an art historian, but MoMA has curators who deal with art. Lowry's job is to deal with the money, and his significance and power comes from spending it, as well as getting it. If the museum expands, so does he.

It is true that the expansion that first began to undo the museum of my memory in 1983 was not his. But the relentless expansions that have now obliterated the original museum are the Lowry vision. I say "vision" with appropriate sarcasm. Could anyone really have envisioned what the museum has become? Could even the most enthusiastic ticket taker have wanted this?

The intimate, jewel-like space has become a standard-issue institutional structure, more suited to a corporate headquarters in Los Angeles or Dallas. It is impersonal to a degree that is not a mistake, but rather a function – it is just transition space, designed to move people with maximum efficiency. It is cold, unpretty, and always confusing. One room looks like the next. One turn mirrors another. It screams "get out" because that's what it needs you to do: hurry through so others can hurry through.

MoMA is, with fabulously inverted logic, now one of the most visited museums in the world. I suppose that is the intended accomplishment. It is also one of the most unpleasant efforts at a pleasurable experiences you might endure. It's always Bloomingdales on a pre-Christmas Saturday at MoMA. It's only hope is to have some sort of metered ticket. Everybody is admitted in 30 minute bursts.

Yes, any feeling person ought to oppose this new design, at least to save the Folk Art Museum. But it is really too late for MoMA. The damage is done.